Faculty and Research

Lisa Koonce, Cassie Mongold, Laura Quaid, Jennifer Winchel. How Do Forward-Looking Estimates of Credit Losses Affect the Judgments of Financial-Statement Users? Contemporary Accounting Research, 2026 (forthcoming).

Accounting standards now require companies to estimate credit losses over the full life of a financial asset, rather than recognizing losses only when current conditions signal trouble. This study examines how the change in accounting affects the way financial statement users judge a loan, and the managers who made it, after it defaults. Across three experiments, the study finds that providing earlier warnings about potential credit losses can reduce hindsight bias—the tendency to believe an outcome was more predictable after it happens—by making actual losses seem less surprising. As a result, users are less likely to judge managers’ original lending decisions harshly.

Manuel Adelino, W. Ben McCartney, Antoinette Schoar. The Missing Loan-to-Value Cycle. American Economic Review: Insights, 2026.

Despite major ups and downs in housing prices over the past 25 years, new research finds that the share of U.S. mortgages with high loan-to-value ratios—meaning borrowers owe a large amount relative to their home’s value—has remained remarkably stable. This pattern held across regions and groups of borrowers, even as the sources of financing for these loans shifted between government backing and private investment. The findings challenge common explanations of housing booms and busts that emphasize changes in how much people can borrow against their homes. These findings offer new insights into the relationship between mortgage lending and housing market fluctuations. For economists, financial institutions, and policymakers, the research suggests that changes in collateral constraints alone may not fully explain why housing prices rise and fall. Understanding what drives these cycles may require a broader look at the forces shaping mortgage markets and housing demand.

Maggie Zhang, Yang Gao, Jingjing Li, Steven Johnson. When Influencers Delegate Replies: How Social AI Agents Shape User Engagement. Information Systems Research, 2026 (accepted).

As social media influencers struggle to keep up with growing audiences, platforms now offer AI agents that can reply to followers on an influencer's behalf. Using the rollout of such a feature on a major social media platform, researchers compared users who received an AI reply with similar users who did not. Users who received an AI reply became more likely to comment on the influencer's later posts. The gains are strongest when AI replies are timely, relevant, and consistent with the influencer's own communication style, and when replies are scarce, for example when the influencer rarely replied before. Loyal followers respond more positively, while gains are weaker for commercialized influencers and those in the technology sector.

Abbie Griffith Oliver, Jeffrey Lovelace. Breaking the Silence: Developing an Organizational Mental Health Capability. Academy of Management Review, 2026 (forthcoming).

Organizations often invest in employee mental health resources, yet those resources go unused—not necessarily because employees do not need support, but because workplace barriers make it difficult to recognize their needs or seek help. As a result, organizations may mistake low utilization for low demand. In their research, Abbie Griffith Oliver and Jeffrey Lovelace explain how organizations can develop the capability to recognize hidden mental health needs, connect employees with support, and continuously adapt their practices. Their framework outlines three stages of this process: uncovering unmet needs, creating conditions that encourage employees to seek support, and learning from employee experiences to improve organizational responses over time.

Nate Allred, Karen Page Winterich. Repair Service Signals: How Brand Repair Services Signal Unused Utility and Increase Product Repair. Journal of Consumer Research, 2026 (accepted).

As consumers increasingly replace broken products rather than repair them, brands are looking for ways to encourage more sustainable choices. Research finds that brand-provided and brand-certified repair services can make consumers more likely to repair products by signaling that broken items still have useful life left. In two field studies with computer repair companies, identifying a shop as Dell- or HP-certified increased the share of website visitors who initiated a repair or requested a quote from 2.2% to 4.1% in one study and from 0.9% to 6.7% in the other. The effect is particularly influential when consumers might otherwise overlook a product’s remaining value.

However, the effect is less pronounced when consumers have product expertise or sentimental attachment, which can motivate repair without brand encouragement. Similarly, among Nintendo Switch owners, information about the upcoming Switch 2 largely erased the advantage of brand-certified repair, as the prospect of an upgrade encouraged replacement. These findings show how brands can promote sustainable consumption by helping customers recognize the value in existing products, while highlighting how consumer motivations and new product releases can influence the effectiveness of repair initiatives.